is a

Japanese castle are fortresses constructed primarily of wood and stone. They evolved from the wooden stockades of earlier centuries, and came into their best-known form in the 16th century. Castles in Japan were built to guard important or strategic sites, such ...

located in

Karatsu is a city located in Saga Prefecture on the island of Kyushu, Japan. Its name, formed from the Japanese word roots 唐 ''kara'' (China, or continental East Asia in general), and 津 ''tsu'' (port), signifies its historical importance as a ...

Saga Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located on the island of Kyushu. Saga Prefecture has a population of 809,248 (1 August 2020) and has a geographic area of 2,440 km2 (942 sq mi). Saga Prefecture borders Fukuoka Prefecture to the northeast and Nagasak ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. It is a ''hirayamajiro'', a castle built on a plain rather than a hill or mountain. At the end of the

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characteriz ...

, Karatsu castle was home to the

Ogasawara clan The was a Japanese samurai clan descended from the Seiwa Genji.Papinot, Jacques. (2003)''Nobiliare du Japon'' – Ogasawara, pp. 44–45 Papinot, Jacques Edmond Joseph. (1906). ''Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie du Japon.'' (in Fren ...

, ''

daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji era, Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast, hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and n ...

'' of

Karatsu Domain was a Japanese domain of the Edo period. It is associated with Hizen Province in modern-day Saga Prefecture.

. It was also known as .

Location

Karatsu Castle, which stands beside Karatsu Bay, is unusual in that the stonework rises directly out of the water, using the ocean as a natural

moat A moat is a deep, broad ditch, either dry or filled with water, that is dug and surrounds a castle, fortification, building or town, historically to provide it with a preliminary line of defence. In some places moats evolved into more extensive ...

. It is a medium-size castle with the ''Honmaru'' (inner bailey) located on top of Mount Manto, the ''Ni-no-maru'' (2nd bailey) and the San-no-maru (3rd bailey) in the west, and the outer structures to the south. The ''Ni-no-maru'' secondary bailey contained the palace of the ''daimyō'' of Karatsu and the domain’s administrative offices. The innermost bailey would normally contain a

donjon A keep (from the Middle English ''kype'') is a type of fortified tower built within castles during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars have debated the scope of the word ''keep'', but usually consider it to refer to large towers in c ...

; however there is considerable dispute as to whether or not it actually ever did. Records indicate that a stone foundation base existed from at least 1627, but the Tokugawa government never authorized the construction of a donjon tower. The present donjon is a modern reconstruction based on artists assumptions on what a Keichō period (1596–1615) donjon should look like.

History

Terasawa Hirotaka, a retainer of

Toyotomi Hideyoshi , otherwise known as and , was a Japanese samurai and ''daimyō'' (feudal lord) of the late Sengoku period regarded as the second "Great Unifier" of Japan.Richard Holmes, The World Atlas of Warfare: Military Innovations that Changed the Cour ...

, became lord of Karatsu in 1595. In the

Battle of Sekigahara The Battle of Sekigahara (Shinjitai: ; Kyūjitai: , Hepburn romanization: ''Sekigahara no Tatakai'') was a decisive battle on October 21, 1600 (Keichō 5, 15th day of the 9th month) in what is now Gifu prefecture, Japan, at the end of ...

in 1600, he joined the forces of

Tokugawa Ieyasu was the founder and first ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan, which ruled Japan from 1603 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. He was one of the three "Great Unifiers" of Japan, along with his former lord Oda Nobunaga and fellow ...

and attacked

Gifu Castle is a Japanese castle located in the city of Gifu, Gifu Prefecture, Japan. Along with Mount Kinka and the Nagara River, it is one of the main symbols of the city. The castle is also known as . It was designated a National Historic Site in 2011 ...

. He was rewarded with greater lands around Karatsu, forming a dominion of 123,000 ''

koku The is a Chinese-based Japanese unit of volume. 1 koku is equivalent to 10 or approximately , or about . It converts, in turn, to 100 shō and 1000 gō. One ''gō'' is the volume of the "rice cup", the plastic measuring cup that is supplied ...

''. In 1598, he abandoned his original castle of

Nagoya Castle is a Japanese castle located in Nagoya, Japan. Nagoya Castle was constructed by the Owari Domain in 1612 during the Edo period on the site of an earlier castle of the Oda clan in the Sengoku period. Nagoya Castle was the heart of one of the ...

, and started work on a new castle at Karatsu, using many materials from the old one, from 1602 1608. The

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate (, Japanese 徳川幕府 ''Tokugawa bakufu''), also known as the , was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Tokugawa-jidai''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia ...

ordered neighboring '' tozama'' domains to contribute to its construction, and they did so primarily by excavating its network of moats. In 1637, in part due to his failure to suppress the

Shimabara rebellion The , also known as the or , was an uprising that occurred in the Shimabara Domain of the Tokugawa Shogunate in Japan from 17 December 1637 to 15 April 1638. Matsukura Katsuie, the ''daimyō'' of the Shimabara Domain, enforced unpopular polic ...

, his lands were confiscated by the Shogunate. Karatsu Domain was given over to the control of the

Ōkubo clan The were a ''samurai'' kin group which rose to prominence in the Sengoku period and the Edo periods.Meyer, Eva-Maria"Gouverneure von Kyôto in der Edo-Zeit."Universität Tübingen (in German) Under the Tokugawa shogunate, the Ōkubo, as heredita ...

(1649–1678), Matsudaira (Ogyū) clan (1678–1691), the Doi clan (1691–1762),

Mizuno clan The was a Japanese kin group which claimed descent from Minamoto no Mitsumasa, son of Minamoto no Tsunemoto of the Seiwa Genji clan. Papinot, Jacques Edmond Joseph. (1906). ''Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie du Japon''; Papinot, (2 ...

(1762–1817), until finally coming into the possession of the

in 1762. In June 1869, the title of daimyo was abolished, and in 1871, Karatsu Domain itself was abolished with the

abolition of the han system The in the Empire of Japan and its replacement by a system of prefectures in 1871 was the culmination of the Meiji Restoration begun in 1868, the starting year of the Meiji period. Under the reform, all daimyos (, ''daimyō'', feudal lords) ...

, and became part of the new

. Karatsu Castle was pulled down shortly afterwards, and in its place Maizuru Park was established in 1877. The current donjon and some other structures of the castle were reconstructed in 1966 to boost local tourism and to function as a local museum. The current donjon features five tiers and five stories, with a lower ground floor; it also houses an exhibition area.Karatsu Castle
Japan National Tourist Association Many of the ''yagura'' date from the same time, although the Tatsumi Yagura was added in 1990.

Literature

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Notes

External links

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Jcastle Profile

{{Continued Top 100 Japanese Castles Castles in Saga Prefecture Museums in Saga Prefecture History museums in Japan Mizuno clan Ogasawara clan Ogyū-Matsudaira clan Ōkubo clan